Cast your minds back to December ….. Almost every futures line manager throughout the City was in hiring mode – scouting out who they could snap up in time for Q1. Christmas seemed to have come early for headhunters covering this space and those brokers, sales traders and salesmen in the Listed and ETD space [in processes] were on the verge of landing their dream jobs.

Cue January. Nothing happened – well at least no hiring happened. There were however, plenty of high profile redundancies including those at a tier one US investment bank! The weather froze. The banks froze and no one was getting a job. The forecast was miserable and we had a long winter ahead.

March on the other hand has shown an enormous change in attitude. Suddenly, banks are hiring, so are brokerage houses. It’s as if Q1 never happened. The broking space (which was almost written off at one point) is picking up and even some of the large investment banks are starting to negotiate their headcount with the various HR departments.

Sounds great? It is. Except: the bar has been raised. Previously, your P&L may have been deemed solid and acceptable at £800k. Now, many line managers are demanding candidates have a transferable client base worth in excess of £1.5m.